A-Level Politics: US Government Compared

The comparative paper is not a quiz about America. It asks what difference a structural feature makes, and the marks go to candidates who can say what follows from an arrangement rather than what it is called. So every question here is a situation in one system with the other system standing beside it.

It begins with the feature the rest depend on. An amendment needs supermajorities in both chambers and then ratification by three quarters of the states: that is entrenchment, which means the constitution cannot be altered by the ordinary legislative process — not, as one option has it, that it can never be altered at all. Set against that, a system where a significant constitutional change is made by an Act passed like any other.

Then the separation of powers, shown rather than described. The executive refuses to sign a bill and the legislature enacts it anyway with two thirds of each chamber, which is only possible where the two branches have independent authority — an override is meaningless in a system whose executive commands a legislative majority by definition. A second chamber that can end a bill outright rather than delay it makes the same point about where a proposal can die.

Federalism is separated from devolution by where the power comes from: a constitutional division that the centre cannot unilaterally reclaim, against a grant that in principle it could. The electoral college is explained mechanically, so that a candidate winning more votes nationally and losing the presidency is an outcome of state-by-state allocation rather than an error. Judicial review in the American sense is put next to a system whose courts interpret Acts and cannot invalidate them, and that contrast is the whole question rather than a footnote to it. Rights held in an entrenched bill are set against rights held in ordinary legislation, where a later Act is all it takes.

Two questions are about people rather than documents. A judge nominated by the executive, confirmed by one chamber and serving for life is insulated from pressure and, for exactly the same reason, appointed in a process that decides the court's direction for decades — both of those at once. And a candidate chosen by that party's voters in the district rather than by the party organisation changes who holds the sanction that matters: whoever controls the nomination is the person a legislator will be most careful not to cross.

The set closes with several separate points at which one proposal can be stopped, treated as a design that some defend as a brake on a temporary majority and others criticise as an obstacle to governing — which is how the paper wants it treated.

No party, politician, president, judge or election result is named in either country. Nothing is reproduced from any exam board specification, past paper or mark scheme.

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• Say what entrenchment means and how it differs from change by ordinary Act
• Explain a veto and an override as evidence of separated rather than fused branches
• Distinguish federalism from devolution by where the power originates
• Explain mechanically how a candidate can win more votes nationally and lose the presidency
• Say what follows when both chambers can end a bill
• Contrast judicial review in the American sense with interpretation without invalidation
• State both consequences of life tenure combined with political appointment
• Compare entrenched rights with rights held in ordinary legislation
• Say what control of the nomination does to party discipline
• Treat multiple points of blockage as a design with arguments on both sides

Ten structural situations, each with the other system beside it: an amendment needing supermajorities and state ratification, a bill enacted over a refusal to sign, a state and a federal government claiming the same subject, a candidate ahead nationally and short in the college, a bill that clears one chamber and dies in the other, a court voiding an Act, a judge appointed for life by two political branches, a statute inconsistent with a constitutional right, a nomination decided by a party's district voters, and a proposal facing several separate points of blockage. Twelve flashcards carry the vocabulary — codified constitution, entrenchment, separation of powers, checks and balances, veto, override, federalism, enumerated powers, electoral college, bicameralism, judicial review, primary election.